Windows Mobile 6.5.1 on the Way?

I guess this is no huge surprise, but Download Squad reports that Microsoft is already working on a minor revision to the recently released Windows Mobile 6.5:

When Microsoft launched Windows Mobile 6.5 earlier this month, the latest version of the company's operating system for cell smart phones and mobile devices was met with lukewarm (if not hostile) reviews. In a nutshell, the biggest complaint is that the operating system was essentially unchanged from the previous few versions and didn't offer much to convince users to stick with the platform instead of switching to an iPhone, Blackberry, Google Android, or Palm device.

But there may be hope. Windows Mobile 6.5 does have a new and improved web browser and home screen, even if the calendar and contacts applications haven't changed in half a decade. And now it looks like Microsoft is working on an incremental update that may or may not be called Windows Mobile 6.5.1 that will bring a number of minor but significant improvements.

No real news here (they do quote Long Zheng, after all), but it looks like some of the new features include a touch-friendly Contacts application, the move of the Start button back to the bottom left of the screen (where it was originally, a la desktop Windows, back in the mid- to late-1990s), and an overall visual refresh.

Discuss this Article 17

not to be cruel, but where have you been? 6.5.1 builds have been rolling out weekly on a VERY well known mobile site for quite some time. I'm running a build now that is only 3 weeks old. This is EXTREMELY old news and visiting any windows mobile site will land you info on this stuff!

Avro
Let's see. Windows mobile is, despite articles out there, one of the most popular platforms for smart phones (to the point that Apple conveniently leaves them off their pretty charts at press events) with sales and installed base well into the 20-30% range and actually several percent higher in the US market than Apple and second only to RIM depending on how you draw the feature phone/smart phone line to include or exclude Nokia.
But, while I don't feel that way, you certainly have a right to think that corporations should drop product lines that aren't getting massive dominence in their market.
So, should we assume that in keeping with your rules, you are also saying:
"Why doesn't Apple just throw in the towel on the Personal Computer business and admit defeat?"
and
"Why doesn't Apple just throw in the towel on the Mobile Phone business and admit defeat?"
Didn't think so.

@AVRO
Why? Because since they are Microsoft, they are going to give it one more try.
If their next try does not look like the Zune interface I am not sure it will be a success since it will look much like all other smart phone OSes out there.

Totally agree with Mike Galos on this one... suggesting that Microsoft throw in the towel on mobile OS is downright stupid.
6.5.1 is definitely something worthy of some press to show that Microsoft is working on improvements, and while test builds are great and have been around as reddragon pointed out, test builds aren't exactly suited for production release which is why OEMs haven't been rolling it out yet... not that OEMs are perfect either, lol.

"Why doesn't Microsoft just throw in the towel on the Mobile Phone business and admit defeat?"
...Because in the world of business, sometimes it requires multiple tries before really nailing it down.
I suppose by that logic, Linux should throw in the towel because it's not widely used.
Honestly people, competition is a GOOD thing. If the companies challenge each other to do better, the products will only get better and better, and we as the consumers are the ones who ultimately win in the end.
Trust me, if Apple had a true monopoly over the phone industry...just as a hypothetical situation (That won't happen seeing as there are numerous phone carriers and such), then you'd see stagnation in the quality of the products and upped pricing as well as things being less interesting. And note: This would go for any company, not just Apple, in a situation like that.
Competition keeps companies on their toes.

And they should: this is what I found at Gizmodo. http://gizmodo.com/5374876/windows-mobile-65-review-theres-no-excuse-for...
< I really didn't want to beat up on WinMo here, because at this point it just feels tired. But man, come on Microsoft, you're giving me no choice. Windows Mobile 6.5 isn't just a letdown—it barely seems done. t's a superficial update, and not a very thorough one. It's an interim product, and a vain attempt to hold onto the thinning ranks people who still choose Windows Mobile despite not being somehow tethered to it until the tardy Windows Mobile 7 comes out, whenever that may be. And it won't work.
Things get worse when you move past the surface, revealing an OS that hasn't been fundamentally changed in years, and which bears a strong resemblance to Windows Mobile 6.1, and a startlingly not-weak resemblance to PocketPC 2002. The new homescreen Start Menu, lock screen and contextual menus are just veneers, and they're not very thick.
The terrible Windows Media Player app looks the same, the photo albums are helped only by smoother scrolling and support of basic swipe gestures, and the text, email, notes and settings pages are jarringly old-looking, and seriously hostile to pointing devices any larger than a pen. Especially fleshy ones.
The confusingly-named Mobile Internet Explorer 6 is to Mobile IE 5 what IE 7 was to IE6 on the desktop. Get that? This is to say it's a massive upgrade, but like IE7, which added tabs and popup blocking about two years after everyone else had it, Mobile IE6 is at least a generation behind its competitors.
Microsoft isn't really advertising the SUPER SPEED of Windows Mobile 6.5, which makes sense: 6.5 is based on the same underlying Windows CE version (5.2) as 6.1, and even 6.0. In other words, its guts are oooold.
I'd like to think that 6.5's stunning failure to innovate is a symptom of a neglected project—maybe Microsoft just needed something, anything to hold people over until the mythical Windows Mobile 7 comes out, whatever it is. But as Steve Ballmer himself has plainly admitted, it's worse: Microsoft has simply lumbered in the wrong direction for two years, letting everyone, save maybe Nokia, fly right past them.
Oh, wait: Gizmodo are Mac-zealots. And wait, Microsoft will come out with Windows Mobile 7, that will blow everyone away. Right, Galos?
I'm sure you'd believe it if Microsoft told you they created unicorns that shit gold and bring world peace.

Avro,
You may not realize it, but Windows Mobile is used in more places than cell phones. Granted, that is it's more visible use, but there are others; like stand alone mobile devices, and further specialized hardware running Windows Mobile (like gasoline pumps).
For example, I recently developed a non-cell phone Windows Mobile app, that was designed to read RFID cards, and then process remote transactions over WiFi.
Like the rest of the Windows world, there is much more to the OS, than what the average consumer sees.
"Why doesn't Microsoft just throw in the towel on the Mobile Phone business and admit defeat?Why doesn't Microsoft just throw in the towel on the Mobile Phone business and admit defeat?"
Given the same logic, why doesn't Apple throw the towel in on it's Mac desktop business.

@ roteague
Here's why: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/10/19results.html
Apple sold 3.05 million Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing a 17 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter.
You can google customer satisfaction with OSX and Apple support for yourself. It far outshines most business.

Windows Mobile 6.5 will do nothing to increase WinMo's market share against today's competition. It's that terrible and dated.
Only pedantic IT managers still herded in the Microsoft corral would foist this turd on their end users.

"Here's why: www.apple.com/.../19results.html
Apple sold 3.05 million Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing a 17 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter.
You can google customer satisfaction with OSX and Apple support for yourself. It far outshines most business."
That doesn't change the fact that the Mac is still a niche product, and doesn't change Avro's logic.

My understanding is that the nifty hand-held devices that check you out in an Apple (physical) store without going to the register (register?) are run by...Windows Mobile. (I've had my receipt show up in Mail on the iPhone while I was still conversing with the Apple person.)
Apple probably doesn't want Microsoft throwing in the towel just yet.

At my company we moved off of BlackBerry in Sept of 2008 for about 200 users. We moved to WinMo phones. Everyone hates them. HATES THEM.
1 year later, we are ditching them. We are going with iPhones on ATT and the Hero on Sprint, users choice.
Android is going to KILL WinMo and may even surpass the iPhone.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/10/09/android_2012_gartner/

I have to agree that Android is probably the bigger threat to WinMo than the iPhone. The Moto Droid should be pretty killer, and with other Moto Android devices and HTC going in to that market big, the absolute variety of handsets, all carriers now on board pretty much, and a big name not afraid to spend some money and throw around its clout, the future looks pretty damn good for Android.
WinMo is just treading water right now. There is still a market for this codebase in many verticals, particularly with ruggedized models and other special purpose form factors. However, as we know from the renaming of WinMo, and the desire to move to 7 that MS does have something else coming down the pike.

WinMo is in DEEP trouble, 7 is not out till what late 2010 at the earliest? And despite some' attempts to frame this as a MS vs. Apple thing much like some do with iPods there a plenty of other players in this space. In short MS can play the usual embrace extend extinguish game as there plenty of alternatives.
http://www.intomobile.com/2009/03/13/mobile-os-market-share-stats-confir...
Simply put no matter how hard MS has been trying they are losing market share every quarter and not just to Apple. The funny thing is that in its various incarnations its been around for what ten years? I strongly considered a Samsung Blackjack as my first smart phone until I saw what it ran on at the time, no way I was going to tolerate WinMo.
So dance away saying (implying) that the iPhone is a failure. Fact of the matter is that the iPhone is nipping very closly at the leaders heels and has gone from no phones in 2007 to cash making machine 2 short years later. At this rate it will be less then a year before Apple elipses WinMo and starts after RIM.
And on top of all of this I say use what phone you want, but anyone who thinks that the iPhone is a failure... there are plenty of companies that would kill to have that level of "failure".
Commence mental gymnastics.

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